[01] Alyssa Sureyya Binti Awang, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [02] Lim Yon Ling, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [03] Divyah Nayagi, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [04] Villasheny Ghanesh, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [05] Udari Sandalika Pasquel Wasange, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia.

Assertiveness is regarded as a vital skill that can help an individual to enhance their interpersonal communication. In the context of medical field, the ability to present an assertive response is essential in critical circumstances to save a patient's life. Without jeopardising working relationships, assertive behaviour may be used to line up patient privileges. With this background, a survey was done to determine the level of assertiveness of MUCM medical students and to study the association between age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, religion, academic year, residential area, household income, highest level of education in parents and level of assertiveness. A cross sectional study was conducted among MBBS pre-clinical and clinical year students of MUCM from semester 1 until semester 10. An online questionnaire was distributed and a total of 124 responses were collected. The data was statistically analysed using Epi Info version 7.2.4.0. Unpaired T-test and ANOVA were used to analyse the data. The results revealed that 77.5% of the participants are tentative, 21.7% are assertive and 0.8% are aggressive based on Rathus Assertiveness Schedule. This study showed that there were significant association between nationality and assertiveness. Malaysian students (mean=-10.2) had negative assertiveness score showing that they were more tentative than international students (mean=5.4) with a p value of 0.009. However, there were no significant association between age, gender, ethnicity, religion, academic year, residence, parental education, household income and assertiveness. In a nutshell, most of the students from MUCM are tentative, only few of them are considered as assertive and very few of them are aggressive, in which Malaysian students are less assertive than Non Malaysian students. Overall, the study revealed that most students of MUCM had a low level of assertiveness. Thus, we recommend that education institutes should encourage students to engage in some assertiveness training programs which help to improve their level of assertiveness.

Assertiveness, Cross Sectional Study, Medical Students, Manipal University College Malaysia

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